Read Online Angel's Fury by Bryony Pearce - Free Book Online Page A

for this.’
    Dad nodded.
    ‘But . . .’
    ‘Enough, Cassiopeia. We’ll manage.’ Dad slowed the car. ‘What turn am I looking for?’
    Mum looked at the paper in her hand. ‘We’re coming up to a village called Harmon and looking for a left turning by the post office.’
    Sure enough, as we turned a corner, a village appeared as if dropped there by the mist that coiled over the streams.
    Over the village green a pub sign creaked loud enough to hear over the engine. It read
The Blacksmith’s Arms
. The crimson Post Office sign glowed next to it and an old-fashioned red telephone box guarded the other side of the road.
    ‘There.’ Mum pointed to a half-hidden junction and Dad turned the wheel.
    The houses quickly thinned until only occasional outlying properties were left. They clung to the village boundary like remote stars in an expanding universe.
    As we passed the final house, chickens reacted to the sound of our car and lined up the garden wall like a militia. The house had once been painted white but giant peeling patches and brownmottling gave the appearance of diseased neglect. With no little sense of irony I read the crooked sign pinned to the gatepost: Hope Farm.
    Mum’s knees began to jump up and down uncontrollably.
    ‘Mum?’
    She started to speak as if I hadn’t. ‘You have to work to get well, Cassie. If this fails . . .’ She balled her fists on her knees. ‘Doctor Ashworth thinks she can help you, so you have to let her try.’ I met her eyes in the mirror. They were as wet as the car window. ‘This is all we’ve got,’ she whispered.
    I didn’t know if she meant that the Doctor held all our hopes or all our money and I didn’t ask, because it didn’t matter either way.
    If the Doctor can’t help me, I’ll have to stay this way for the rest of my life.
    Suddenly the car crunched on gravel and Dad slowed. Whatever was rattling in the boot crashed into the suitcase and stopped.
    There was a sign in front of us: Mount Hermon. Beneath the name was the Orion’s Belt logo I’d last seen on the Doctor’s laptop; it was the colour of blood. There was no building and nogate, just the sign and a long gravel drive. We speeded up again.
    Finally we rounded a corner and I had my first view of Mount Hermon. It was bigger than it had seemed on the brochure and I gasped; it looked like the set of an old film.
    The wide steps glistened with recent rainfall but, as I watched, the sun eased through the clouds and gleamed on the cream stone. A shaft of light glinted from a window pane and drew my attention to a set of bars.
    Why are there bars on the windows?
    With a final rattle and crunch the car rolled to a halt and Dad heaved on the handbrake. Not one of us moved.
    Then a sharp crack just by my head made me jump and my door was opened from the outside.
    Nostrils flaring, my head snapped up. A boy leaned on the roof-rack, long hair shifting in the breeze. Recognition whipped the air from my lungs. The boy had, quite literally, stepped out of a nightmare . . . the one from the Doctor’s office.
    My heart started to race.
    Frantically I searched my memory; maybe we’d met somewhere. His hair was neater than I remembered and tied into a ponytail at the base of his neck. The style revealed the presenceof a twisting scar that snaked from beneath his right ear lobe to the collar of his shirt. It made him look . . . dangerous.
    Our gazes met and the boy’s own intake of breath was obvious.
    Could I be as familiar to him as he is to me?
    His eyes widened as I continued to stare. The left was the colour of melted chocolate, the right, while still brown, was so light it was almost gold. I blinked, slightly confused by the odd sense that there were two people in there.
    Then I noticed how deeply his eyes were sunk, as though bruising from a heavy beating was only just fading. More specifically as though he’d never enjoyed a good night’s sleep.
    Whoever he is . . . this boy is like me.
    The boy’s eyes